Israel General Election Thread: March 17 2015

[Famous Mortimer]

I agree with danny as well.

At least, it's what happened with Likud last time.

Ayoob Kara got a seat reserved for minorities on the Likud list, which was in the realistic 20s. Then Likud and YB smashed their list together and the 22nd or whatever spot on the Likud list became something in the mid30s of YB.

[danny]

I read the JH rules a bit differently.
1) The Tkuma members come separately, so the different reservations don't consider this and are then moved back, so the number 4 spot reserved for women will really be at number 5.

JPost disagrees with this, but I'll trust your reading of the rules in Hebrew over my reading of a journalistic account of them in English.

Jpost doesn't actually disagree, the just leave it vague and don't say what happens. The JH rulebook for the primaries make no mention of this either but since they are not part of this process, it makes more since the way I read it.

2) The chosen by the Bennet part only says that Bennet can put one person in every five spots by his choosing, but again this only for JH and not related to Tkuma, and doesn't limit the specific place beyond one in each five. Also, it is quite likely that Bennet doesn't use all of his theoretically available spots.

JPost seems to suggest it's just three slots (one in the first five, one in the second five, and one in the third), or alternatively that Bennet only intends to use three slots. But again, I'll trust you on this.

In this case I have no idea where Jpost is getting this from, because it certainly can't be from the official rulebook posted on their site.

[danny]

The Hadash convention today has authorized the party to unite with RAAM and BALAD.

[136or142]

Forgive me for venting, some a--- on the wikipedia Israel election polling website removed the combined 'left-right' aggregate seat totals that some kind person had been posting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

I know of the political views of the parties, but there are so many! Can some kind person here please tell me which Israeli party is one the left and which is one the right?

[danny]

Forgive me for venting, some a--- on the wikipedia Israel election polling website removed the combined 'left-right' aggregate seat totals that some kind person had been posting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

I know of the political views of the parties, but there are so many! Can some kind person here please tell me which Israeli party is one the left and which is one the right?

There is a good reason not to aggregate the seat totals, and that is because they can mean various things, and some parties don't identify with either side anyway. Aggregating is pretty pointless, especially if you try to shove parties into two groups.

[136or142]

Forgive me for venting, some a--- on the wikipedia Israel election polling website removed the combined 'left-right' aggregate seat totals that some kind person had been posting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

I know of the political views of the parties, but there are so many! Can some kind person here please tell me which Israeli party is one the left and which is one the right?

There is a good reason not to aggregate the seat totals, and that is because they can mean various things, and some parties don't identify with either side anyway. Aggregating is pretty pointless, especially if you try to shove parties into two groups.

While I'm sure that is the reason the aggregate totals were removed I disagree that it's pretty pointless if you're hoping to quickly see who is most likely to head a coalition government!

[Famous Mortimer]

It's not really good for that either.

Kulanu, Shas, and UTJ could join either a right or left government. To a lesser extent, so could Yisrael Beytenu. Yesh Atid is also not totally committed to the left, although it probably will be this campaign.

[danny]

Forgive me for venting, some a--- on the wikipedia Israel election polling website removed the combined 'left-right' aggregate seat totals that some kind person had been posting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_Israeli_legislative_election,_2015

I know of the political views of the parties, but there are so many! Can some kind person here please tell me which Israeli party is one the left and which is one the right?

There is a good reason not to aggregate the seat totals, and that is because they can mean various things, and some parties don't identify with either side anyway. Aggregating is pretty pointless, especially if you try to shove parties into two groups.

While I'm sure that is the reason the aggregate totals were removed I disagree that it's pretty pointless if you're hoping to quickly see who is most likely to head a coalition government!

The aggregate totals do not give you that information, since parties from either "side" can join into both coalitions, and other parties wouldn't join either.

[136or142]

The person who posted the aggregate numbers based it on whether the party was a member of the Likud coalition or the opposition in the last Knesset.

[Vosem]

The person who posted the aggregate numbers based it on whether the party was a member of the Likud coalition or the opposition in the last Knesset.

That's not really applicable, since there have been new parties created since 2013 and there is also one case of two parties running together one list (Labor-Hatnuah) where one party did not participate but the other did. So...that system can't work.

[danny]

The person who posted the aggregate numbers based it on whether the party was a member of the Likud coalition or the opposition in the last Knesset.

That's not really applicable, since there have been new parties created since 2013 and there is also one case of two parties running together one list (Labor-Hatnuah) where one party did not participate but the other did. So...that system can't work.

That, and it still doesn't tell you anything about the next government. Just because a party wasn't in the last likud government, doesn't mean it won't be in the next one, and vice versa.

[Hnv1]

MK Adi Kol (Yesh Attid) announces she will not be seeking reelection
And suprisingly also MK Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz)

Nooooooo!!!!  I loved that guy!  Any particular reason he bowed out?

official: exhausted after the Tel Aviv election
actual: failed to get his people elected to the national convention, might have been selected lower than 6, not that good of a relationship with Galon.

None the less an electoral blow. Now there's  an opening for a male to get selected in the top 6, going to be interesting

Damn.  Any particular reason why the relationship between him and Gal-on was so bad?

By rumours, He thought she (meaning the party) didn't back him enough for the mayor run. And my assumption is she also feared he would try to run against her for leadership considering he's more popular with the general public

Do you think there will be a significant number of people who won't vote for a Meretz without Horowitz? And who do you think is most likely to replace him?

Yes, he was the more mainstream of the MKs and I think some voters will trend Labour due to that.
Also, considering the union of the Arab parties and Hadash some of their voters will trend to Meretz.

who would replace him? I think Uri Zaki (life partner of MK Zandberg) had a really high amount of his supporters elected to the convention and he might be selected. If not than maybe Mossi Raz or Abu Vilan with the support of the Kibbutz vote and Gilon supporters

[danny]

In some ridiculous news, all kinds of mistakes were found in the Likud primary results, with the corrected results moving Danny Dannon and Yariv Levin up into number 9 and 10, respectively, and overtaking Hanegbi that moves into number 12. Hotovely almost passed Dichter which would have moved her from number 26 into number 20. She closed the gap from 745 votes to just 55.

[MalaspinaGold]

Sore loserman MK Moshe Feiglin will break from Likud to form his own party, which may either contest the election itself or ally with another right wing prty such as Haam Itanu or Otzma...

[Zanas]

Elohim Israeli politics are hard to follow !

[danny]

It isn't a proper Israeli election without a bunch of parties splitting, uniting or being founded.

[Famous Mortimer]

Netanyahu might regret forcing Feiglin out of the party. If a Feiglin/Ben-Ari party (which would be pretty untouchable in coalition terms) makes it into the Knesset, it will make a narrow right-religious government impossible.

[Famous Mortimer]

Also, Labor-Livni will not appear on the ballot as "The Zionist Camp" because they don't want to alienate Arab voters. They will announce their official name after the primary.

[Vosem]

The former commander of South Command, Yoav Galant, is joining Kulanu. Galant was nominated for Chief of Staff in 2011, but his appointment was controversially canceled by Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

[danny]

The former commander of South Command, Yoav Galant, is joining Kulanu. Galant was nominated for Chief of Staff in 2011, but his appointment was controversially canceled by Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

Cancelled for taking over some public lands for himself, something for which he apologised for today.

[danny]

Today's campaign was centred around gay marriage after a video came up where a bunch of People running in the Jewish Home primaries. No one supported it, although some supported an alternative of some kind that would give rights but wouldn't be called marriage, and one simply said that he would consider the issue and consult with people while keeping in mind the party he is in (Danny Dayan).

This caused an uproar and accusations of homophobia, although this shouldn't be surprising at all coming from JH.

This did cause a journalist to send a question from all the parties about whether they support gay marriage. Labour, Yesh Atid, and Meretz said they support it. Bennet went on TV and said that they support some rights for gay couples, but not marriage. Kulanu gave a non-answer saying people should live as they believe. Likud said that it hasn't yet formulated an opinion on the matter, a position which I don't expect to change until the election.

Individual Likud MK's have come out on both sides of the issue in the past, Regev Yeelon and Hanegbi support. I know Edelstein said he was against and there are probably others.

[Famous Mortimer]

Is there anyone opposed to secular marriage but in support of gay marriage?

[danny]

Is there anyone opposed to secular marriage but in support of gay marriage?

Haven't checked but I doubt it.

[Vosem]

When are the JH primaries going to take place? I've seen 'January 5' in a lot of places but that obviously can't be right, since they'd be over in that case.

[danny]

When are the JH primaries going to take place? I've seen 'January 5' in a lot of places but that obviously can't be right, since they'd be over in that case.

If you are wondering about the date for the primaries:

Likud: 31/12
Labour:13/1
Jewish Home: 14/1
Meretz: 19/1